I’ve had this picture sitting around for a year now waiting to find out where exactly I took it. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, and I’m tired of passing it over every time I look for a photo, so I’ve decided to post it tonight. I think it’s the last of my images from South Africa. It was taken after leaving a beach and on my way for a few drinks sat outside a pub, which we departed due to a chip shortage. Then, we had a nice lunch sat outside a well-stocked pub across the street.

Arriving at Nordhoek to watch the sunset I was immediately struck by the power of the wind whipping sand into your ankles. Then, I saw the waves, powerful and frequent, their violence emphasized by the mist being whipped from their crests, back lit by the setting sun. Accompanied by the rugged coastline the scene was set for an awesome evening, prior to going for an excellent curry.

I’m writing this a couple of days before you’ll see it while sat at my friend’s aunt’s house in Cape Town. I’ve had a great time here but tomorrow we are moving on to Livingstone, Zambia. I’ll be traveling with my friend and her cousin.

Yesterday, while taking photos on Nordhoek beach I wondered if they may be getting bored with me wandering about very slowly with a backpack and tripod. Then I looked over and saw this. I think it’s safe to say they’ll do a good job of entertaining themselves the whole trip.

Shortly after I took this photo I heard a shriek of “let’s take pictures of our shadows!”, which was pretty impressive, as the wind was blowing at about 40 knots towards them…

The plan is to spend a few days in Livingstone, then bus our way through Windhoek… though we realy have no idea how we’re going to go about doing that. Hopefully by the time this photo posts itself we’ll have a better idea!

Iceland Update

Heading off to Husavik soon to go to the Phallological museum, whale museum and then out whale and puffin watching! Apparently they spotted blue whales two days ago. Hopefully they’re still about. Last night, we visited Lake Myvatn and it’s weird lava field surrounds, including an under ground hot spring that made for a pretty cool photo opportunity. Having a jeep paid off last night as our GPS directed us up a rough track, it didn’t look anything like a marked road. After driving a fair way in, the GPS beeped and asked if our car was suitable for that road. I have no idea how it can direct people up that road as most cars wouldn’t be able to take it.

Today’s Photo

This is the last of the photos that I have of Boulders Bay South Africa. I love the way these rocks have been carved by the elements. The tall skinny one jutting up feels like a modern, abstract sculpture.

After drinking copious amounts of wine and petting cheetahs (preferably not in that order) this is your view as you leave Spier Winery. This is where we started our wine tour and from here we went for what may have been the best meal we had in South Africa. It’s called bobotie and it’s delicious. Our guide described it to us in much the way that I’m going to describe it to you and all we could think was that it sounded odd. We decided to go ahead with our guide’s recommendation just the same and were certainly please.

Bobotie is a minced beef dish. The beef is mixed up with raisins and spiced up. It has a bit of a curry flavour. It’s cooked in a small casserole and topped off with a really thin layer of egg. They served it with mango chutney and sliced banana. Like I said, this combination of ingredients sounds odd but it really is delicious.

After climbing over and crawling under the large boulders here I began my walk back to the entrance. On the way I made sure to get a few shots of the surreal beachfront scenery and Boulder Bay. This shot is a combination of 7 exposures, first aligned in Photoshop and then merged into one image in Photomatix before returning to Photoshop for last touches.

Without a doubt, the main attraction at Boulders Beach is the penguins, which, with a little effort, you can get very close to. Also, If you’re willing to brave the cold water (5 people who’d just completed two overnight flights were not), you can actually swim with the penguins here. Searching for penguins is great fun. However, the beach itself would likely be an attraction in its own right.

The beach is walking distance from the Simon’s Town train station and it’s called Boulders Beach for a reason. It is comprised of inlets in amongst these piles of granite boulders. I’m not sure how these boulders formed, but it makes for an interesting scene – added to by the fact that the tides have created stripes on the boulders. The water is crystal clear and with a bit of luck penguins can be seen swimming about. It’s worth spending some time lounging around here.

I had spotted the interesting clouds in the background of today’s photo coming across the sky and set about finding something to put in front of them. A lot of my photos, particularly in places I know well, like Bermuda, are the result of seeing something developing in the sky and finding a location to act as my foreground. If I’m heading out in Bermuda I’ll often look at the sky and make a split decision on where to head rather than thinking of what I want to photograph. The approach may be a little backwards, but it works when you’ve got options in all directions, within 15 minutes drive. I wonder how many more photographers regularly let the sky dictate the location they choose to shoot. Feel free to let me know what you think about this in the comments.

This is the driveway to the Waterford Estate in Stellenbosch. After two days of adrenaline, cage diving with great whites and going on a combat flight in a Huey Helicopter, it seemed a good idea to have a more relaxing day. Wine was the perfect solution. That being said we still decided that we had to stop off at Cheetah Outreach to become acquainted with a few big cats on the way to our first vineyard. We didn’t want the day to feel too safe. After enjoying a wine and chocolate pairing (mandated by Shannon’s exuberant cheer while hearing the options), which involved 6 or 7 wines and three chocolates, everyone was suitably mellow.

Not mellow enough, however, to prevent them heckling from the car as I set up for this photo. The reason for this one and only display of tensions at my photo taking was quite understandable. I spent so long setting up, and adjusting the positioning of my camera that we were too late for the game sampling lunch we had planned. Fortunately this disappointment was replaced by one of the great experiences of our trip – bobotie. It’s a South African dish made with minced beef, raisins and spices topped with an egg film. It looks like a cottage pie but that’s as far as the similarities go. It’s also served with mango chutney and bananas. I have no idea how anyone decided this combination was a good idea. When I’m next in South Africa this will be one of the meals I seek out.

In the end, I’m happy with this picture and my time-wasting resulted in a great meal, so it all worked out nicely.

If you’re interested in licensing any of the photos featured here, or if you just want to say hi, please e-mail johnnyp@traverseearth.com.

If you’d like to purchase a print you can do so by clicking on any picture’s you like on the blog. Also, you can click the “Buy Prints” link at the top of the page to go browse my photos by continent and country.

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